MOUNTAIN VIEW -- Greg Katayuma visited NASA's Ames Research Center when he was in grade school but hadn't been back since.

So when he heard that the center was inviting the public into the famed facility to celebrate its 75th anniversary, he jumped at the chance to return.

"We thought we'd come out here and take a look and see what they do," said Katayuma, 59, who spent the better part of Saturday with his family touring the Moffett Field center. He was one of thousands of curious visitors who attended the open house, Ames' first in 17 years.

Visitors to the event visited booths set up by NASA researchers looking at everything from nanotechnology to astrobiology. They walked inside Hangar One and peered through its steel skeleton. They walked through an inflatable mock-up of an International Space Station module, pretended to take a ride in a model of a lunar rover, and took pictures next to an inflatable model of the new Orion space capsule.

They also got to go inside the "back fence," the inner part of NASA Ames where its employees actually work. There, some lucky folks got to go inside particular buildings while others were able to just view some of the imposing structures.

Perhaps most impressive was Ames' National Full Scale Aerodynamic Complex, a gigantic wind tunnel complex used to test the aerodynamics of full-sized aircraft. Show organizers opened two massive doors on the wind tunnel, allowing visitors to take a rare look inside.

"People often wonder post-Shuttle what NASA's doing," said Chuck Duff, Ames' director of center operations. "We're doing more than ever. We're focusing on exploration."

Seeing the wind tunnel up close was the one thing Katayuma definitely wanted to do during his visit. "The sheer size of this one building is the most impressive thing we've seen so far," he said.

Show organizers were expecting a crowd of 150,000 people. They handed out 120,000 tickets to the event last month. But organizers weren't checking for tickets at the door, meaning that anyone who fought the traffic -- which backed up cars on northbound and southbound Highway 101 and on Moffett Boulevard -- could get in.

Many visitors came with their kids in tow, whether to accommodate their interest in space science -- or to try to encourage it.

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NASA Ames turns 75; tens of thousands flock to open house